


Camping

by rabbitjesus



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Gen, Human Jeremy Heere's Squip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 17:14:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18815398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitjesus/pseuds/rabbitjesus
Summary: SUPER old snippet from a human Squip au where Squip is less stupid and realizes they're human and Jeremy is tired





	Camping

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Bea_The_Cat123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bea_The_Cat123/gifts).



It had only been 27 minutes, and Jeremy was at the mental breaking point with Squip, as far as they could tell.

  
It wasn't their fault that he had forced Squip to go camping during one of Jeremy's extremely sparse long weekends. He knew how they were... uncomfortable with nature. They weren't scared like Jeremy kept repeating; insisting upon this 'exposure therapy' will have no effect if there is no phobia. And there isn't. Squip wasn't programmed to feel fear, only necessary caution. Computers are not capable of feeling when it could so quickly contradict their objective. 

  
So, here they were. They stood as straight as a stretch of the highway, hands clasped behind their back and feet planted firmly atop the cleanest stone they could find. Jeremy was fiddling with their few bags of supplies, desperately trying to figure out how to set up the tent. It was a two-person job, but Jeremy refused to ask for help, and Squip refused to offer it. They merely waited for Jeremy to realize the fruitlessness of this venture and his decision to return to civilization. 

  
Besides, at this point Jeremy refused any and every possible offer they could make. From help with outfit choice to even making his bed, Jeremy grew frustrated with their every idea. Mr. Heere appreciated their attempts to help around the house when they decided not to hide in their room, but even he took note of his son's distress.

  
It wasn't frustrating to Squip that Jeremy could not understand that their prime and sole objective was to help him. It was merely... inconvenient. They did not dwell on what this new situation meant for them, only on how to repair their relationship with their host, and achieving his goals.

  
Squip looked to their left at a nearby stream, noting the presence of a lig but wind and a leaf tumbling past their arm. This brought to mind their newest situation. Due to Jeremy's consumption of 20 year old Crystal Pepsi, not only was Squip able to interact with the physical environment around Jeremy, they required nutritional sustenance in order to survive. Jeremy insisted upon more than green Mountain Dew and triscuits, but they could not risk damaging any of their processors with untested foods. However, their processing and physical ability seemed to be decaying over the last month.    
Worse yet, Squip no longer had access to their Quantum Processor. This made decisions and statistical predictions for Jeremy's future nigh impossible. They now had a dysfunction in their prime directive. How were they supposed to reform a beneficial bond with their most when they could not give exact and precise advice?    
At that, Squip heard Jeremy throw down the said remnants of the tent. Their food and sleep supplies were scattered among the mess. Their supply of Mountain Dew was on a pile of wood chips near the rock circle of Jeremy's planned fire. Jeremy spun around to glare at Squip.

  
"A little help?" He huffed, already exhausted and angry by the useless company. 

  
"I assumed you wouldn't want mine," they said flatly. They weren't wrong; they were sure Jeremy would be much happier to spend the weekend with any number of his friends. "We could always go back and you can finish that tournament with Michael-"   
"No!" He snapped.

“You are obviously distressed.”

“Because of you! You don't actually help, all you do is complain or try to- or try to mess me up! Just- get over yourself for a second and actually help me for once!” He yelled. It was barely noon and Jeremy had already been overwhelmed today. At least it was later than his previous records earlier in the school year.

“Jeremy, I am programmed solely with the goal of helping you in the most efficient way possible.” They stepped off their rock for a moment and handed Jeremy the instructions he had lost amongst the foliage. “As soon as I get my Quantum Processor back online, we can continue with your other goals. I know you're worried about college applications with you current SAT score, I can help you study for a perfect score.”

He rolled his eyes, “you mean you'll give me the answers?”

“If that's what it takes.”

Jeremy's eyes blew wide and he grabbed a tent pole as if it would emphasize his point. “You can't do that! You don't have a Quantum Processor, you can't only be seen and heard by me, you aren't a computer! You're a giant man child!” He shouted.

Squip looked down at the dirt under their feet. It looked disgusting. Bugs everywhere, plants grown without rhyme or reason. Nature was filled with hazards and imperfections. Everything about it crawled under their skin like ticks, much like Jeremy's last statement. They didn't even mind how human that sentence sounded. 

Everything about this trip was simply… inefficient. They didn't fully understand the notification their motherboard was likely giving them. All they knew was that it felt much like Jeremy's anger that they learned to recognize. However, it felt much more constraining and widespread, as if the notification were stuck in their holographic throat and caged around their chest. 

They watched a caterpillar crawl through the fallen sticks in disgust, and promptly shook all of those useless thoughts from their brain. Nature may be filled with imperfections, but they were not built to be.

“If I help you put this tent together, will you stop with the insistence that I somehow grew flesh and blood from a hard drive?” They needed a task to focus their mind on. They did not want to go dormant from useless activity, and helping their host was the most necessary objective at the moment. For that, they needed to regain Jeremy's trust, only possible when he actually asked for assistance.

Jeremy gave them a skeptical look, then stuck out his hand. “I'll stop for at least the day.”

They shook on it.

“Deal.”

Squip grabbed the instructions and glanced at Jeremy's monstrosity of a tent. “You were actually quite close.”

“Really?” Jeremy perked up, proud of his progress. He was far too easy to read.

“No.” Suip opened the packet to the page with the listed supplies. “Do you see where that flap in the middle is? It is supposed to be on the outside.” They threw the paper onto the caterpillar. “If you kept going like that, we’d be collecting rain directly on your head, and I don't really think you wanna wake up that way.” At Jeremy's tired look, they added, “the pole placement was correct though. At least we don't need to reset those.”

Jeremy sighed and grabbed one side of the not-yet-propped tent, flipping it to the other side. It was twisted in the middle.

“Well?” He asked.

It was Squip’s turn to sigh. “Fine.” They grabbed the opposite end and lifted, only to see the amount of mud and dirt collected on it. They quickly threw the tent down, wiping off their hands in a near panic.

“Oh come on!” Jeremy threw his hands in the air, letting ng the tent fold over a bit with the wind.

“I'm sorry Jeremy but I can not touch something that could be contaminated and damage my processor!”

“You don't have a-" he cut himself off. “Maybe your processor is so slow cause all you do is drink Mountain Dew “

“Mountain Dew functions well with me, I refuse to take the chance of eating anything that could harm my code further.”

Jeremy looked down for a moment, then at the boxes of supplies. “Do you wanna use gloves?”

Squip paused. “...That would work.”

Jeremy tore out a few of the supplies before finding a pair of water resistant gloves and tossing them to Squip.

They put them on, feeling a bit more comfortable in their own skin now that they could not make direct contact with the world around them. They grabbed the tent, flipping it over and straightening the crinkled gray edges with ease. It seemed more like a tarp than a tent, but it had a floor, ceiling, and walls to block out the forest around them, which is what Squip really preferred. They stared at the line trees as Jeremy struggled to put the corner poles into the ground.

The best part of this trip would be hiding in their sleeping bag.

They looked at Jeremy's work for a moment before quickly finding a soft patch of earth to set up the rest of the tent poles. It was difficult to keep each side of the walls standing up enough for one pole to go in without ripping out the others, but Jeremy holding up the tent as Squip worked with the rest made the experience much smoother.

The wind picked up around them. “See, I can still help you.” They said

“Yeah, and just in time.” Jeremy pointed to a clearing of trees where the sky was easily seen. The sky was darkening, and those clouds were moving much faster than Squip was comfortable with.

Squip shifted uncomfortably, refusing to look away from the sky. “We should head back. These conditions are dangerous and you'll just get sick and angry like usual.”

Jeremy laughed at the oncoming possible-hurricane. “Dude, that's just rain. Besides, if we go back now we'll just get caught in the middle of it.” Squip liked that idea even less than being in a gross yet waterproof tent.

Jeremy grabbed a box and practically threw it into the tent along with his sleeping bag. “You comin’?”

That snapped Squip out of their stupor. They grabbed their sleeping bag and whatever boxes they found nearby and practically jumped into the tent. They were in a panicked rush, but that didn't stop them from setting the boxes of food, cooking supplies, lights, and any other miscellaneous supplies to the size as quickly and neatly as possible. They were forced to deal with nature, but they could not let their only shelter be as messy as the horror show outdoors.

They only stopped when they realized Jeremy was watching them, instead choosing to lie back on their sleeping bag with their eyes closed. Maybe then they could at least pretend that they were back at home.

“Jeez, and you were the one who was supposed to teach me to chill?” Jeremy murmured. 

“I heard that.” Squip refused to open their eyes. They assumed Jeremy would just think they were bored of the conversation.

“Good,” he said.

They heard Jeremy lie down on his own sleeping bag, pulling out his phone to probably text Michael to bitch about them. That seemed to be his favorite pastime.

“What happened to appreciating nature?” They asked, practically feeling Jeremy roll his eyes.

“You do know I'm only doing this to make you less… hermity and weird.”

“I'm not a hermit.”

“You slept under my bed and refused to move for the first week you were back.”

“You may have attempted to shut me down again. And, may I remind you, I was right.” They did not think about how Michael was so ready to drown them in that lake. “Excuse me for taking necessary precautions.”

“Refusing to go outside in the rain or have too many lights on isn't being cautious. You're paranoid.”

Squip’s retort about being unable to feel things like anxiety that would lead to paranoia got caught in their throat as they heard a crack of thunder outside, and a sudden onslaught of rain came pouring down. 

“I thought this was just a rainstorm?” They asked, far too much edge in their voice for their liking. Their eyes were now shot open, staring accusingly at Jeremy. 

Jeremy set down his phone. “It's fine. I'll probably be over in like, ten minutes. Big storms don't last long “

Squip didn't trust Jeremy's judgement, and chose to screw their eyes shut and try to block out the noise outside that just wanted to ruin their life.

They didn't know how long they lay there, but with every ticking raindrop and clash of thunder, it felt infinitely too long. They could not continue like this for much longer, or they would become useless.

No Quantum Processor, no trust, no connection to SQUIPs across the world, no knowledge, they were out of the loop. They would require too many updates, other SQUIPs would seek to reset then as they had lost connection with both the database and their host. They would be gone for too long, and this constant exposure to viruses and other detriments was contaminating their programming. If they took too long, connecting to the other SQUIPs across the world would overload them; they would be shut down again.

Squip couldn't erase the thoughts of failing their primary directive. They couldn't receive direct orders, messages, nor knowledge at this time, and it tore them apart. They would become closer to a parasite for failing their one mission, then losing all connection. They were built to serve and complete set goals for their host. They were useless now.

Crack.

Their mind split from the spinning thoughts. Those weren't useful now. Their eyes shot open, looking over to Jeremy. He had his statistics homework out, and he seemed to be ready to tear out either every page of the book or all of his hair. Maybe both.

Either way, this was the perfect use of the abilities Squip had left.

They sat up, placing their hands behind then to stay upright. They only needed to glance at the problem Jeremy was stuck on to know what to do. “What is it?”

“I don't know!” He exclaimed. “This is the last one. But stupid Mr. Fuegler refuses to teach us shit!” He ran his hands through his hair and stared uselessly at his graphing calculator. “What the hell is a chi squared gof test anyway?”

Squip took the calculator with a minimal glare from Jeremy. “That teacher didn't tell you you don't put the numbers in a list? You need a matrix.”

“Like Neo?”

“No.” They showed Jeremy the screen. “In the first one you put the predicted probabilities. This problem for Skittles says it's 20% each, and that's for all the cells.” They let Jeremy punch in the numbers.

“Now what?” They went to matrix B.

“Put in the numbers they actually got. After that, choose the Goodness of Fit test from the stats button, and you should get it.”

Jeremy was silent for a few minutes as he navigated his calculator. “So now I just write all the numbers down and a conclusion?”

“Pretty much.”

“...So there's significant evidence…” he mumbled, “... is not equal to the hypothesis…” He finished the sentence, throwing away the spiral. “Why couldn't he have just told us this shit!” He groaned.

“He can't do his job.” They replied flatly.

Jeremy flopped back down on his sleeping bag. “No shit.” 

Another, louder torrent of rain returned and Squip was sent curling up into a tangled ball with their sleeping bag. There was barely any wind, but the thought of drowning in the rain and short circuiting was more than enough to be a problem for Squip.

Jeremy staring at them and obviously planning something was also a problem for them.

They stared at the ceiling, secretly wishing they had a program that could control the weather. Just as thunder struck again, this time farther away, Jeremy got up.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Squip asked as Jeremy unzipped the tent door.

“With you.” He didn’t elaborate further. Squip had less than a second to understand what the meant before Jeremy moved behind them and shoved them through the door. They were nearly face down in the mud, their hands covered in dirt and disgusting things as rain poured onto their back and head.

Jeremy was quick to push them out the rest of the way before zipping up the tent opening.

Squip wasn’t quick enough to stop themself from shrieking in horror at their position. They clambered to their feet only to see Jeremy fervently guarding the way inside. He already looked like a soaked dog, and Squip refused to acknowledge the heaviness in their own clothes.

When they calmed enough to realize they were not, in fact, short circuiting or falling apart in some way, they took the chance to breathe. “This is horrible.”

“You’re staying out here.” Jeremy had gained the confidence to consistently act against them, but they had mixed feelings about it.

They didn’t want to acknowledge the pride. Jeremy was nowhere near the terrified dork he met; he could actually speak to people on his own. It seemed simple, but that was unbelievable progress for Jeremy. After all that had happened, Squip at least had the knowledge that they had helped in some way.

The other feeling they blocked out was anxiety. Their charge was being unreasonable, and not being listened to could completely overthrow their every plan. Not only that, Jeremy could severely damage them if he kept doing this. He may cause Squip to lose all contact to the database permanently; then he would lose the only person who existed solely to help him. It might not be a fun existence, but that is what Squip had to do, no matter what.

They also may have been anxious about all of the animals and mud surrounding them.

“What if I malfunction? Or get a virus?” They asked.

“You haven’t yet.”

“We could both die out here, Jeremy.”

Jeremy just grinned nervously.

“Stop.”   
“No.” He walked past Squip. “We’re going on a walk.”

“What?!’

“We are going to hang out in the rain until you stop having a panic attack every time you go outside!”

Squip took a step back, “and how is that supposed to work?”

“Well I uh…” he paused. “I’m gonna prove that you won’t die just by being outside.”

They stared at him. “If I do die?”

“I’ll figure that out later.” He kept walking, and Squip followed despite every warning in their head screaming that it was a bad idea.

The ground sunk beneath them, each step emitting a disgusting sound. The leaves and branches fell haphazardly and were unbearably annoying to avoid. The wind was dying but the water was starting to freeze Squip. Jeremy wouldn’t stop staring at them to measure their every reaction. The sky was too dark, it was too cold, the bugs-

“Ya know it’s actually a lot nicer outside than I expected,” Jeremy  said.

Squip looked up, ready to explain just how stupid that was when their foot caught on a branch. They fell, and were sent tumbling down a nearby ditch absolutely swimming in mud. They of course landed face down.

This was awful.

It was disgusting, horrifying awful. They rolled over onto their back, hearing Jeremy run down next to them. They did their best to remove the disgust from their mind, trying to refocus on their goal. They had to get up, get Jeremy inside before he was sick, return home as soon as possible, and fix their code. There was no need for unwarranted… notifications in their brain.

Jeremy looked down with an unreadable expression.

“Do you wanna go back?” He asked.

Squip was not expecting that, but they took too long to answer. They didn’t know the answer to this. They didn’t understand the cause of this indecisiveness. Maybe they were subconsciously making a plan. Staying out here would make Jeremy happy, and he would then help return their Quantum Processor to a functional state.

Jeremy was full of surprises today.

“Dude are you… feeling good?” He asked when Squip remained silent.

“Jeremy, you know that my programming doesn’t allow me to…” They trailed off.

They could feel the slimy mud sinking around them. They could feel the cold air seeping into their bones. They could smell the rain and the plants. They could feel said rain hitting their face, even taste the water that fell into their mouth.

They couldn’t do that when stuck in Jeremy’s head. 

They didn’t know of any computer program that could genuinely feel anything.

And Squip, they felt fucking scared.

The wilderness was vast and empty, and without constant access to the internet, they could get lost anywhere. They were terrified of getting hurt and dying out here with Jeremy. Their chest tightened when realizing they had access to no one. What did it mean to have their own thoughts? To feel for themself? It was all too big, it made their head both concave and expand in the same moment; they couldn’t tell if they were hyperventilating or had stopped breathing all together.

They were so afraid of being a human.

“Hey Squip, let’s go back. Come on.” Jeremy was already tugging at their sleeve.

That’s when everything stopped, and they realized one thing they could do as a human.

“Jeremy.” They started, and took a deep breath to find if they could. “I don’t have to.”

His face screwed up in confusion, “What? Wh- huh?”   
They sat up on their arms again, covered in mud and slime. “Jeremy, I don’t have to do anything!” His face still showed signs of not understanding, looking more worried than relieved. But this time, Squip didn’t need to consider that.

The tightness in their chest loosened until it almost felt like they didn’t have a body again. The relief was almost as crushing as the fear, just in the opposite direction.

They continued, “Jeremy, I’m not connected to anything anymore. I don’t have a primary directive, I don’t have programming dictating everything I do.” They started grinning despite the mud all over their face. “I can do whatever I want- Jeremy I can want things!” They hadn’t felt happiness before, but they assumed this was the big high that Jeremy felt when with people like Michael and Christine. They fell backwards into the mud, not wanting this feeling to leave.

They never wanted to be numb again.

They didn’t understand why this felt so good or relieving, but they knew the new emotions in their head loved freedom. They loved not having the feeling of being watched in their own brain, or having each and every idea constructed by a string of code someone planned out for them.

They stared at Jeremy for a moment. “I can think on my own.”   
Jeremy’s face was unreadable, and he crouched down to be near level with Squip. The rain poured.

Suddenly, he broke into a small smile and fell down next to Squip. “Well, welcome to the human race again.”


End file.
